Midwest
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Critical List: More Midwest deaths after storms; White House, NASCAR go green
More deaths in the Midwest after storms hit Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Some areas of Texas have received less than one-fifth the normal amount of rain in the last six months. The drought has cost $1.5 billion so far. But these catastrophes are totally unrelated, right? Bill McKibben takes his sarcastic stick to anyone who'll […]
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Big Ag is pissing away our nation’s rich topsoil
Midwest farmland is more scarred and eroded then previous reports suggested.Photo: Environmental Working GroupBad federal policy and intensifying storms are washing away the rich dark soils in the Midwest that made this country an agricultural powerhouse and that remain the essential foundation of a healthy and sustainable food system in the future. That’s the alarming […]
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Midwestern wine makers have it tough — but neighbors can make it tougher
In 1999, there were three grape vineyards in Iowa. Now there are 230. But each could be wiped out by a commonly applied pesticide called 2, 4-D.
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How our food system is destroying the nation’s most important fishery
To understand our impact on nature, there is truth in the saying, “everything is connected.” Few situations illustrate this concept as dramatically as the agricultural wastes from the Midwest that contribute so seriously to the aquatic dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Human activities and natural phenomena occurring on land masses combine to impact […]
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Smart Growth even makes snowstorms better
Mixed land use is a tenet of Smart Growth development that has a lot of virtues. But the name is boring and not very descriptive. Here’s Matt Yglesias describing what it’s like to live in a mixed-use D.C. neighborhood: The building where I live turns out to be a really good place to pass a […]
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Voters in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri support climate action
Polling from 3 key states — and 5 key districts — finds strong support for the climate and clean energy bill. Every major recent poll has come to the same conclusion (see Swing state poll finds 60% “would be more likely to vote for their senator if he or she supported the bill” and Independents […]
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EPA analysis appears doubly flawed
Midwesterners are operating under the misimpression that the allocation formula in the House bill is unfair to them. It doesn’t, although a new, flawed EPA “analysis” (”here“) suggests otherwise. Certainly the formula is a tad ambiguous and that will no doubt be fixed in the Senate. The figure above shows the results of analysis by […]
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Gulf dead zone fix falls flat
It’s good to see a big Midwest “land grant” agricultural program that’s concerned about the Gulf Dead Zone, and upper Midwest farms’ large contribution to it. But this release about a study underway at Iowa State University aiming to reduce nitrogen entering the Mississippi River from farm fields falls flat when you realize it’s just […]
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Are the South and the Midwest splitting on energy?
There’s one interesting aspect of the Waxman-Markey vote worth highlighting in its own post. Ron Brownstein’s analysis contains this intriguing information: The sponsors also maintained substantial support for the legislation even in the Midwestern states expected to generate the most opposition because of their heavy reliance on coal for electricity. Overall 48 of the 60 […]
